Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Cooling system on 100' ish ocean going ship/boat?
On a recent episode of Deadliest Catch the Northwestern had a leak related to one of their fresh water tanks and apparently lost about 1/2 their water. Sig said they had to conserve water because the engines needed water more than they needed showers.
Why would the engine(s) regularly need fresh water? Don't they have a closed cooling system most likely running a antifreeze sort of thing? And like any other closed cooling system theoretically its closed so should not need regular refilling? They then have a liquid to liquid heat exchanger that circulates sea water to cool the coolant?
Or is it something like they are just keeping a reserve in case they had a cooling system failure and needed to re fill it?
4 Answers
- OutThereLv 47 years ago
Any major oceangoing vessel uses a heat exchanger system, closed loop and using raw water circulating exchanger or exchanger plates on the hull, similar to a Sea-Doo with the cooler in the ride plate. Ships operating in salt water for any amount of time cannot use direct raw water cooling, the salt would eat the engine blocks, which is the reason why many boats (such as the mentioned Sea-Doos) use a double circuit, if a boat uses direct raw water cooling it should be flushed after every use.
I didn't see the episode (haven't had TV access in over a year) but likely they want an emergency reserve for the primary circuit in case of a leak, truth be told it might be possible to top off the primary with seawater but the system would have to be completely flushed and redone when the ship reached port, that is lots of downtime so sacrificing showers is a fair exchange for an emergency reserve.
- Anonymous7 years ago
Fresh water is on any boat very important. We need it for drinking and for cooking as well as for hygene. Some boats also use fresh water for the ships sanitary systems.
In addition as has been stated fresh water is also used for the main engine cooling systems.
On an ocean going ship I would expect to be using some where in the region of 10 to 12 tons per day, that's 10 to 12,000 litres per day. We can of course supplement this by using our fresh water generators which supply about 10 tons per day.
The loss of fresh water on board a ship is a very serious misshap. What remains has to be conserved, there are not filling points at sea. I did not see this episode but I would presume that the skipper knew his own ship and its needs.
- mark tLv 77 years ago
Yes they are closed cooling systems, either keel cooled or heat exchanger cooled by raw water. I saw the episode also and can only guess he wants to keep a reserve just in case he needs to fill the engines after a big leak.
- 7 years ago
i think they would most likely be keeping the water in the event of a cooling system failure.
For a 100' they should be inboards and should have the closed cooling system.
